Brian Charlesworth facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Brian Charlesworth
FRSE, FRS
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| Born |
Brian Charlesworth
29 April 1945 |
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 1 daughter |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Evolutionary biology |
| Institutions |
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| Thesis | Genetic variation in viability in Drosophila melanogaster (1968) |
| Doctoral students | Michael R. Rose |
| Other notable students | Gilean McVean (postdoc) |
Brian Charlesworth is a famous British evolutionary biologist. He was born on April 29, 1945. He works at the University of Edinburgh and is also an editor for Biology Letters.
Since 1997, he has been a special research professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Edinburgh. He is married to another evolutionary biologist, Deborah Charlesworth.
Contents
Education and Early Life
Brian Charlesworth studied at Queens' College, Cambridge. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biological Sciences. Later, in 1969, he received his PhD in genetics. His research focused on how genetic variation affects the ability of fruit flies (called Drosophila melanogaster) to survive.
Career Journey
After finishing his PhD, Brian Charlesworth continued his research at several universities. He worked at the University of Chicago and the University of Liverpool from 1971 to 1974. He also spent time at the University of Sussex from 1974 to 1982.
He returned to the University of Chicago in 1985. There, he became a professor of ecology and evolution. In 1997, he moved to Edinburgh, where he has been ever since.
Amazing Research Discoveries
Brian Charlesworth has done a lot of important work on how genes change over time. He often uses the fruit fly as a model to study these changes.
He has also developed theories about:
- How living things age.
- How genetic recombination (when genes mix) evolves.
- The evolution of sex chromosomes, which decide if an animal is male or female.
In April 2010, a special issue of the science journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B was published. It honored Brian Charlesworth's important contributions to the field of population genetics. This field studies how genes change in groups of living things.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Brian Charlesworth has received many awards for his scientific work.
- In 1991, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK.
- He won the Darwin Medal in 2000.
- In 2006, he received the Frink Medal from the Zoological Society of London.
- He was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2010 by the Linnean Society.
- In 2015, the Genetics Society of America gave him the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal. This award celebrates a scientist's lifetime achievements in genetics.
His nomination for the Royal Society praised his studies on how populations change over time. It noted his work on how natural selection affects aging and other life traits. He also showed how genetic recombination rates can be changed.
